Objectives To explore possible working mechanisms of anxiety reduction in women with anxiety diso... more Objectives To explore possible working mechanisms of anxiety reduction in women with anxiety disorders, treated with art therapy (AT). Methods A RCT comparing AT versus waiting list (WL) condition on aspects of self-regulation. Stress regulation (heart rate and heart rate variability) and executive functioning (daily behavioural and cognitive performance aspects of executive functioning (EF)) were evaluated in a prepost design. Participants were women, aged 18-65 years with moderate to severe anxiety symptoms. Results Effectiveness of AT compared to WL was demonstrated in a higher resting HRV post treatment, improvements in aspects of self-reported daily EF (emotion control, working memory, plan/organize and task monitor), but not in cognitive performance of EF, stress responsiveness and down regulation of stress. The decrease in anxiety level was associated with improvements in self-reported daily EF. Conclusions AT improves resting HRV and aspects of EF, the latter was associated with art therapyrelated anxiety reduction.
Sex chromosome trisomies (SCT) are among the most common chromosomal duplications in humans. Due ... more Sex chromosome trisomies (SCT) are among the most common chromosomal duplications in humans. Due to recent technological advances in non-invasive screening, SCT can already be detected during pregnancy. This calls for more knowledge about the development of (young) children with SCT. This review focused on neurocognitive functioning of children with SCT between 0 and 18 years, on domains of global intellectual functioning, language, executive functioning, and social cognition, in order to identify targets that could benefit from early treatment. Online databases were used to identify peer-reviewed scientific articles using specific search terms. In total 18 studies were included. When applicable, effect sizes were calculated to indicate clinical significance. Results of the reviewed studies show that although traditionally, the focus has been on language and intelligence (IQ) in this population, recent studies suggest that executive functioning and social cognition may also be significantly affected already in childhood. These findings suggest that neuropsychological screening of children diagnosed with SCT should be extended, to also include executive functioning and social cognition. Knowledge about these neurocognitive risks is important to improve clinical care and help identify targets for early support and intervention programs to accommodate for the needs of individuals with SCT.
Autismespectrumstoornissen (ASS) worden gekenmerkt door problemen in de sociale interactie, probl... more Autismespectrumstoornissen (ASS) worden gekenmerkt door problemen in de sociale interactie, problemen in de communicatie en beperkte en repetitieve interesses en gedragingen. Er is een groeiend besef van de genetische factoren en de neurobiologische problemen die aan het gedragsbeeld ten grondslag liggen. Het ontwikkelen van valide en betrouwbare instrumenten om de symptomen die bij autisme horen in beeld te brengen heeft tot positieve ontwikkelingen geleid op het gebied van vroegdiagnostiek. Tegelijkertijd heeft onderzoek zich gericht op onderliggende cognitieve mechanismen die het gedragsbeeld van autisme kunnen verklaren. Hoewel geen van de cognitieve verklaringskaders in staat is het fenotype van ASS volledig te verklaren, biedt neurocognitief onderzoek de mogelijkheid om een sterkte-zwakteanalyse te maken van het functioneren van individuen met ASS. Daarbij kunnen relatieve sterktes worden ingezet om voor zwakke vaardigheden te compenseren, of kan er gericht worden gewerkt aan het optimaliseren van de omgeving.
Background Despite the increasing interest in cardiac autonomic nervous activity, the normal deve... more Background Despite the increasing interest in cardiac autonomic nervous activity, the normal development is not fully understood. The main aim was to determine the maturation of different cardiac sympathetic‐(SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity parameters in healthy patients aged 0.5 to 20 years. A second aim was to determine potential sex differences. Methods and Results Five studies covering the 0.5‐ to 20‐year age range provided impedance‐ and electrocardiography recordings from which heart rate, different PNS‐parameters (eg, respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and an SNS‐parameter (pre‐ejection period) were collected. Age trends were computed in the mean values across 12 age‐bins and in the age‐specific variances. Age was associated with changes in mean and variance of all parameters. PNS‐activity followed a cubic trend, with an exponential increase from infancy, a plateau phase during middle childhood, followed by a decrease to adolescence. SNS‐activity showed a mo...
American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 2020
Children with SCT have an increased risk of suboptimal neurodevelopment. Previous studies have sh... more Children with SCT have an increased risk of suboptimal neurodevelopment. Previous studies have shown an elevated risk for neurobehavioral problems in individuals with SCT. However, not much is known about neurobehavioral problems in very young children; knowledge that could help with early identification of children at risk for suboptimal development, and that could help establish targets for early intervention. This study addressed the question of what the behavioral profile of children with SCT aged 1-5 years looks like. In total, 182 children aged 1-5 years participated in this study (N SCT =87, N nonclinical controls = 95). Recruitment and assessment took place in the Netherlands and the United States. The SCT group was recruited through prospective follow-up (50%), information seeking parents (31%), and clinical referral (18%). Behavioral profiles were assessed with the child behavior checklist and the ages-and-stages social-emotional questionnaire. Levels of parent-rated problem behavior were higher in children with SCT. Difficulties with overall social-emotional functioning were already present in 1-year-olds, and elevated scores were persistent across the full age range. Affective and pervasive developmental behaviors were seen in late toddlerhood and prominent at preschool age. Anxiety, attention deficit, and oppositional defiant behaviors were seen in preschool-aged children. Within this cross-sectional study, the developmental trajectory of affective, pervasive developmental, and oppositional defiant behaviors seemed to be different for SCT children than nonclinical controls. Collectively, these results demonstrate the importance of behavioral screening for behavioral problems in routine clinical care for children with SCT from a young age. Social-emotional problems may require special attention, as these problems seem most prominent, showing increased risk across the full age range, and with these problems occurring regardless of the timing of diagnosis, and across all three SCT karyotypes.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmerc... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers' interact... more This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers' interactive style across contexts with their 6-month-old infants (M age = 6.02 months, SD = 0.41, 54% boys), and to what extent quality of prenatal RF could account for the influence of accumulated risk on maternal interactive behavior. Accumulated risk was defined as the sum-score of a selection of risk factors that have been associated with suboptimal infant development. Mother-infant dyads (N = 133) were observed during free play, two teaching tasks, and the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP). Better prenatal RF was associated with more positive maternal behavior in all settings and less negative behavior during teaching and SFP reengagement. Accumulated risk and prenatal RF predicted shared variance in maternal interactive behavior (with unique predictive effects observed only for RF on sensitivity during teaching and SFP play, and for accumulated risk on sensitivity and positive engagement during SFP play, and internalizing-helplessness during SFP reengagement). Accumulated risk had an indirect effect on maternal sensitivity during teaching and SFP play through prenatal RF. These findings suggest not only that RF may be targeted prenatally to improve mother-infant interactions, but also that enhancing RF skills may ameliorate some of the negative consequences from more stable perinatal risk factors that influence parent-child interactions. Children's developmental outcomes have been associated with a large variety of biological and environmental risk factors (Appleyard, Egeland,
Klinische kinderneuropsychologie biedt een up-to-date overzicht van de wetenschappelijke stand va... more Klinische kinderneuropsychologie biedt een up-to-date overzicht van de wetenschappelijke stand van zaken van de neuropsychologie bij kinderen en jongvolwassenen. Waar de uitgave Kinderneurologische ziektebeelden meer inzoomt op de neurologische pathologie bij kinderen, legt dit boek de nadruk op aanpak en theorie van de neuropsychologie bij deze doelgroep. Klinische kinderneuropsychologie verschaft de lezer allereerst een overzicht van de ontwikkeling van de hersenen, waarna de auteurs uitvoerig ingaan op functiedomeinen als intelligentie, perceptie, motoriek en sociale cognitie. In het derde deel komen het stellen van een diagnose en de algemene principes van de therapie aan de orde. Deel 4 is een overzicht van stoornissen, in aanleg en ontwikkeling, zoals ADHD, traumatisch hersenletsel, hersentumoren, infectie van de hersenen en genetische beelden. Een opsomming van veelgebruikte tests vindt men in een bijlage. Dit boek is als overzichtswerk uitermate geschikt voor hulpverleners a...
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmer... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, Jan 6, 2017
Studying cognitive and affective mechanisms of social behavior could lead to identifying early in... more Studying cognitive and affective mechanisms of social behavior could lead to identifying early indicators of derailing social behavior in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The present study combined sensitive and objective techniques, such as eyetracking and psychophysiology, to provide insight into early neurodevelopmental mechanisms that are more difficult to uncover when relying on behavioral measures. Social attention towards faces and changes in affective arousal were investigated together in 28 young children with ASD (42-75 months) and 45 nonclinical controls (41-81 months). Children were shown a social-emotional video clip while eyetracking and heart rate were measured. Children with ASD fixated less on key social-emotional features within the clip as compared to controls, even though both groups attended equally toward the screen. In contrast to the control group, children with ASD did not show an increase or modulation in affective arousal in response to...
Children with antisocial and aggressive behaviors have been found to show abnormal neurobiologica... more Children with antisocial and aggressive behaviors have been found to show abnormal neurobiological responses to stress, specifically impaired cortisol stress reactivity. The role of individual characteristics, such as comorbid anxiety, in the stress response is far less studied. Furthermore, this study extended previous studies in that not only baseline and reactivity to a psychosocial stressor were examined, but also recovery from a stressor. These three phases of cortisol could be impacted differentially in boys with oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder (ODD/CD) with (+ANX) and without anxiety (-ANX). The results revealed that cortisol patterns in response to psychosocial stress were different for boys with ODD/CD+ANX (n=32), ODD/CD-ANX (n=22) and non-clinical controls (NC) (n=34), with age range of 7.8-12.9 years. The ODD/CD-ANX group showed lower overall cortisol levels than the NC group. When considering the three phases of cortisol separately, the ODD/CD-ANX group ha...
This study examined additive and interactive effects of callous unemotional (CU) traits and autis... more This study examined additive and interactive effects of callous unemotional (CU) traits and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) symptoms in relation to trait empathy, in boys with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD). Participants were 49 boys with ODD/CD, aged between 7-12 years. Boys completed a questionnaire measure of empathic sadness and a broader questionnaire measure of affective and cognitive empathy. Parents and teachers reported on CU traits, and parents reported on ASD symptoms. In agreement with predictions, results reveal a negative association between CU traits and empathic sadness, particularly strong for ODD/CD boys with low levels of ASD symptoms. Results also reveal a negative association between ASD symptoms and cognitive empathy. Findings suggest that CU traits and ASD symptoms are associated with distinct empathy deficits with poor empathic sadness being more typical of CU traits than ASD symptoms.
Abstract Although there is a wealth of information on the emotion recognition skills of males wit... more Abstract Although there is a wealth of information on the emotion recognition skills of males with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), not much is known about these skills in women with ASD. This study investigates the relation between alexithymia and emotion recognition in this group. 31 high-functioning females with ASD and 28 age matched typical females performed a vocal and visual emotion recognition task and completed an alexithymia questionnaire. Level of intensity of the presented emotions was manipulated in the visual emotion recognition task between 25% (low intensity) and 100% (full emotion intensity) in 25% increments. There was no evidence of impairments in the accuracy of visual or vocal emotion recognition. Both groups were equally affected by level of intensity. Level of alexithymia was higher in women with ASD in the cognitive domain. Within the ASD group, women with high levels of alexithymia attained lower scores on visual emotion recognition in the lowest intensity condition, suggesting that being able to identify one's own emotions may help in processing subtle emotions.
Good parenting strategies can shape children's neurocognitive development, yet little is know... more Good parenting strategies can shape children's neurocognitive development, yet little is known about the nature of this relation in school-aged children and whether this association shifts with age. We aimed to investigate the relation between parenting strategies observed during a home visit and children's performance-based attentional control and executive functioning (N=98, aged 4-8years). Linear and curvilinear regression analyses showed that children of parents who were more supportive, were less intrusive, and asked more open-ended questions displayed better inhibitory control. In addition, children of parents who asked relatively more open-ended than closed-ended questions showed better performance on inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility tasks. Curvilinear relations indicated the presence of an optimal amount of closed-ended and elaborative questions by parents-that is, not too few and not too many-which is linked to increased performance on attention...
Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS; velo-cardiofacial-syndrome) are at risk for the... more Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS; velo-cardiofacial-syndrome) are at risk for the developmental disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, the relation between executive functioning (EF) and the severity of ADHD and ASD symptoms is examined, since EF is known to be important in relation to emotional and behavioral problems. The participants consist of 58 children (38 females) with a mean age of 13.5 years (SD 2.6). Standardized assessment was used to evaluate the severity of ASD and ADHD symptomatology. The major aspects of EF, i.e., cognitive flexibility, inhibition, sustained attention, distractibility, working memory and reaction speed, were evaluated. The profile of EF in 22q11DS was found to be characterized by weaker performance compared to the norms on all subdomains of EF. Poor cognitive flexibility and inhibition, as well as high distractibility, were found to be related to more severe ASD symptoms, while poor quality of sustained attention and high distractibility were found to be related to more severe ADHD symptoms. It is concluded that children with 22q11DS experience impairments in EF, and that the degree of impairment on specific EF subdomains is related to the severity of ASD and/or ADHD symptomatology. These results may help in defining the mediating role of neurocognitive dysfunctions in the development of social and behavioral problems in 22q11DS.
Objectives To explore possible working mechanisms of anxiety reduction in women with anxiety diso... more Objectives To explore possible working mechanisms of anxiety reduction in women with anxiety disorders, treated with art therapy (AT). Methods A RCT comparing AT versus waiting list (WL) condition on aspects of self-regulation. Stress regulation (heart rate and heart rate variability) and executive functioning (daily behavioural and cognitive performance aspects of executive functioning (EF)) were evaluated in a prepost design. Participants were women, aged 18-65 years with moderate to severe anxiety symptoms. Results Effectiveness of AT compared to WL was demonstrated in a higher resting HRV post treatment, improvements in aspects of self-reported daily EF (emotion control, working memory, plan/organize and task monitor), but not in cognitive performance of EF, stress responsiveness and down regulation of stress. The decrease in anxiety level was associated with improvements in self-reported daily EF. Conclusions AT improves resting HRV and aspects of EF, the latter was associated with art therapyrelated anxiety reduction.
Sex chromosome trisomies (SCT) are among the most common chromosomal duplications in humans. Due ... more Sex chromosome trisomies (SCT) are among the most common chromosomal duplications in humans. Due to recent technological advances in non-invasive screening, SCT can already be detected during pregnancy. This calls for more knowledge about the development of (young) children with SCT. This review focused on neurocognitive functioning of children with SCT between 0 and 18 years, on domains of global intellectual functioning, language, executive functioning, and social cognition, in order to identify targets that could benefit from early treatment. Online databases were used to identify peer-reviewed scientific articles using specific search terms. In total 18 studies were included. When applicable, effect sizes were calculated to indicate clinical significance. Results of the reviewed studies show that although traditionally, the focus has been on language and intelligence (IQ) in this population, recent studies suggest that executive functioning and social cognition may also be significantly affected already in childhood. These findings suggest that neuropsychological screening of children diagnosed with SCT should be extended, to also include executive functioning and social cognition. Knowledge about these neurocognitive risks is important to improve clinical care and help identify targets for early support and intervention programs to accommodate for the needs of individuals with SCT.
Autismespectrumstoornissen (ASS) worden gekenmerkt door problemen in de sociale interactie, probl... more Autismespectrumstoornissen (ASS) worden gekenmerkt door problemen in de sociale interactie, problemen in de communicatie en beperkte en repetitieve interesses en gedragingen. Er is een groeiend besef van de genetische factoren en de neurobiologische problemen die aan het gedragsbeeld ten grondslag liggen. Het ontwikkelen van valide en betrouwbare instrumenten om de symptomen die bij autisme horen in beeld te brengen heeft tot positieve ontwikkelingen geleid op het gebied van vroegdiagnostiek. Tegelijkertijd heeft onderzoek zich gericht op onderliggende cognitieve mechanismen die het gedragsbeeld van autisme kunnen verklaren. Hoewel geen van de cognitieve verklaringskaders in staat is het fenotype van ASS volledig te verklaren, biedt neurocognitief onderzoek de mogelijkheid om een sterkte-zwakteanalyse te maken van het functioneren van individuen met ASS. Daarbij kunnen relatieve sterktes worden ingezet om voor zwakke vaardigheden te compenseren, of kan er gericht worden gewerkt aan het optimaliseren van de omgeving.
Background Despite the increasing interest in cardiac autonomic nervous activity, the normal deve... more Background Despite the increasing interest in cardiac autonomic nervous activity, the normal development is not fully understood. The main aim was to determine the maturation of different cardiac sympathetic‐(SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) activity parameters in healthy patients aged 0.5 to 20 years. A second aim was to determine potential sex differences. Methods and Results Five studies covering the 0.5‐ to 20‐year age range provided impedance‐ and electrocardiography recordings from which heart rate, different PNS‐parameters (eg, respiratory sinus arrhythmia) and an SNS‐parameter (pre‐ejection period) were collected. Age trends were computed in the mean values across 12 age‐bins and in the age‐specific variances. Age was associated with changes in mean and variance of all parameters. PNS‐activity followed a cubic trend, with an exponential increase from infancy, a plateau phase during middle childhood, followed by a decrease to adolescence. SNS‐activity showed a mo...
American Journal of Medical Genetics Part C: Seminars in Medical Genetics, 2020
Children with SCT have an increased risk of suboptimal neurodevelopment. Previous studies have sh... more Children with SCT have an increased risk of suboptimal neurodevelopment. Previous studies have shown an elevated risk for neurobehavioral problems in individuals with SCT. However, not much is known about neurobehavioral problems in very young children; knowledge that could help with early identification of children at risk for suboptimal development, and that could help establish targets for early intervention. This study addressed the question of what the behavioral profile of children with SCT aged 1-5 years looks like. In total, 182 children aged 1-5 years participated in this study (N SCT =87, N nonclinical controls = 95). Recruitment and assessment took place in the Netherlands and the United States. The SCT group was recruited through prospective follow-up (50%), information seeking parents (31%), and clinical referral (18%). Behavioral profiles were assessed with the child behavior checklist and the ages-and-stages social-emotional questionnaire. Levels of parent-rated problem behavior were higher in children with SCT. Difficulties with overall social-emotional functioning were already present in 1-year-olds, and elevated scores were persistent across the full age range. Affective and pervasive developmental behaviors were seen in late toddlerhood and prominent at preschool age. Anxiety, attention deficit, and oppositional defiant behaviors were seen in preschool-aged children. Within this cross-sectional study, the developmental trajectory of affective, pervasive developmental, and oppositional defiant behaviors seemed to be different for SCT children than nonclinical controls. Collectively, these results demonstrate the importance of behavioral screening for behavioral problems in routine clinical care for children with SCT from a young age. Social-emotional problems may require special attention, as these problems seem most prominent, showing increased risk across the full age range, and with these problems occurring regardless of the timing of diagnosis, and across all three SCT karyotypes.
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmerc... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers' interact... more This study examined whether prenatal reflective functioning (RF) was related to mothers' interactive style across contexts with their 6-month-old infants (M age = 6.02 months, SD = 0.41, 54% boys), and to what extent quality of prenatal RF could account for the influence of accumulated risk on maternal interactive behavior. Accumulated risk was defined as the sum-score of a selection of risk factors that have been associated with suboptimal infant development. Mother-infant dyads (N = 133) were observed during free play, two teaching tasks, and the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP). Better prenatal RF was associated with more positive maternal behavior in all settings and less negative behavior during teaching and SFP reengagement. Accumulated risk and prenatal RF predicted shared variance in maternal interactive behavior (with unique predictive effects observed only for RF on sensitivity during teaching and SFP play, and for accumulated risk on sensitivity and positive engagement during SFP play, and internalizing-helplessness during SFP reengagement). Accumulated risk had an indirect effect on maternal sensitivity during teaching and SFP play through prenatal RF. These findings suggest not only that RF may be targeted prenatally to improve mother-infant interactions, but also that enhancing RF skills may ameliorate some of the negative consequences from more stable perinatal risk factors that influence parent-child interactions. Children's developmental outcomes have been associated with a large variety of biological and environmental risk factors (Appleyard, Egeland,
Klinische kinderneuropsychologie biedt een up-to-date overzicht van de wetenschappelijke stand va... more Klinische kinderneuropsychologie biedt een up-to-date overzicht van de wetenschappelijke stand van zaken van de neuropsychologie bij kinderen en jongvolwassenen. Waar de uitgave Kinderneurologische ziektebeelden meer inzoomt op de neurologische pathologie bij kinderen, legt dit boek de nadruk op aanpak en theorie van de neuropsychologie bij deze doelgroep. Klinische kinderneuropsychologie verschaft de lezer allereerst een overzicht van de ontwikkeling van de hersenen, waarna de auteurs uitvoerig ingaan op functiedomeinen als intelligentie, perceptie, motoriek en sociale cognitie. In het derde deel komen het stellen van een diagnose en de algemene principes van de therapie aan de orde. Deel 4 is een overzicht van stoornissen, in aanleg en ontwikkeling, zoals ADHD, traumatisch hersenletsel, hersentumoren, infectie van de hersenen en genetische beelden. Een opsomming van veelgebruikte tests vindt men in een bijlage. Dit boek is als overzichtswerk uitermate geschikt voor hulpverleners a...
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmer... more This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri butio n-NonCo mmerc ial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, Jan 6, 2017
Studying cognitive and affective mechanisms of social behavior could lead to identifying early in... more Studying cognitive and affective mechanisms of social behavior could lead to identifying early indicators of derailing social behavior in young children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). The present study combined sensitive and objective techniques, such as eyetracking and psychophysiology, to provide insight into early neurodevelopmental mechanisms that are more difficult to uncover when relying on behavioral measures. Social attention towards faces and changes in affective arousal were investigated together in 28 young children with ASD (42-75 months) and 45 nonclinical controls (41-81 months). Children were shown a social-emotional video clip while eyetracking and heart rate were measured. Children with ASD fixated less on key social-emotional features within the clip as compared to controls, even though both groups attended equally toward the screen. In contrast to the control group, children with ASD did not show an increase or modulation in affective arousal in response to...
Children with antisocial and aggressive behaviors have been found to show abnormal neurobiologica... more Children with antisocial and aggressive behaviors have been found to show abnormal neurobiological responses to stress, specifically impaired cortisol stress reactivity. The role of individual characteristics, such as comorbid anxiety, in the stress response is far less studied. Furthermore, this study extended previous studies in that not only baseline and reactivity to a psychosocial stressor were examined, but also recovery from a stressor. These three phases of cortisol could be impacted differentially in boys with oppositional defiant disorder/conduct disorder (ODD/CD) with (+ANX) and without anxiety (-ANX). The results revealed that cortisol patterns in response to psychosocial stress were different for boys with ODD/CD+ANX (n=32), ODD/CD-ANX (n=22) and non-clinical controls (NC) (n=34), with age range of 7.8-12.9 years. The ODD/CD-ANX group showed lower overall cortisol levels than the NC group. When considering the three phases of cortisol separately, the ODD/CD-ANX group ha...
This study examined additive and interactive effects of callous unemotional (CU) traits and autis... more This study examined additive and interactive effects of callous unemotional (CU) traits and autism spectrum disorders (ASD) symptoms in relation to trait empathy, in boys with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD). Participants were 49 boys with ODD/CD, aged between 7-12 years. Boys completed a questionnaire measure of empathic sadness and a broader questionnaire measure of affective and cognitive empathy. Parents and teachers reported on CU traits, and parents reported on ASD symptoms. In agreement with predictions, results reveal a negative association between CU traits and empathic sadness, particularly strong for ODD/CD boys with low levels of ASD symptoms. Results also reveal a negative association between ASD symptoms and cognitive empathy. Findings suggest that CU traits and ASD symptoms are associated with distinct empathy deficits with poor empathic sadness being more typical of CU traits than ASD symptoms.
Abstract Although there is a wealth of information on the emotion recognition skills of males wit... more Abstract Although there is a wealth of information on the emotion recognition skills of males with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), not much is known about these skills in women with ASD. This study investigates the relation between alexithymia and emotion recognition in this group. 31 high-functioning females with ASD and 28 age matched typical females performed a vocal and visual emotion recognition task and completed an alexithymia questionnaire. Level of intensity of the presented emotions was manipulated in the visual emotion recognition task between 25% (low intensity) and 100% (full emotion intensity) in 25% increments. There was no evidence of impairments in the accuracy of visual or vocal emotion recognition. Both groups were equally affected by level of intensity. Level of alexithymia was higher in women with ASD in the cognitive domain. Within the ASD group, women with high levels of alexithymia attained lower scores on visual emotion recognition in the lowest intensity condition, suggesting that being able to identify one's own emotions may help in processing subtle emotions.
Good parenting strategies can shape children's neurocognitive development, yet little is know... more Good parenting strategies can shape children's neurocognitive development, yet little is known about the nature of this relation in school-aged children and whether this association shifts with age. We aimed to investigate the relation between parenting strategies observed during a home visit and children's performance-based attentional control and executive functioning (N=98, aged 4-8years). Linear and curvilinear regression analyses showed that children of parents who were more supportive, were less intrusive, and asked more open-ended questions displayed better inhibitory control. In addition, children of parents who asked relatively more open-ended than closed-ended questions showed better performance on inhibition, working memory, and cognitive flexibility tasks. Curvilinear relations indicated the presence of an optimal amount of closed-ended and elaborative questions by parents-that is, not too few and not too many-which is linked to increased performance on attention...
Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS; velo-cardiofacial-syndrome) are at risk for the... more Children with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS; velo-cardiofacial-syndrome) are at risk for the developmental disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). In this study, the relation between executive functioning (EF) and the severity of ADHD and ASD symptoms is examined, since EF is known to be important in relation to emotional and behavioral problems. The participants consist of 58 children (38 females) with a mean age of 13.5 years (SD 2.6). Standardized assessment was used to evaluate the severity of ASD and ADHD symptomatology. The major aspects of EF, i.e., cognitive flexibility, inhibition, sustained attention, distractibility, working memory and reaction speed, were evaluated. The profile of EF in 22q11DS was found to be characterized by weaker performance compared to the norms on all subdomains of EF. Poor cognitive flexibility and inhibition, as well as high distractibility, were found to be related to more severe ASD symptoms, while poor quality of sustained attention and high distractibility were found to be related to more severe ADHD symptoms. It is concluded that children with 22q11DS experience impairments in EF, and that the degree of impairment on specific EF subdomains is related to the severity of ASD and/or ADHD symptomatology. These results may help in defining the mediating role of neurocognitive dysfunctions in the development of social and behavioral problems in 22q11DS.
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